Gratitude and Perception: A New Twist

on Nov 28, 2013 • 1:16 pm

Today is Thanksgiving for many of my family and friends. If that includes you, or did, Happy Thanksgiving!

Even if you’re not celebrating this holiday, there’s still much to be thankful for, eh? 🙂 I continue to be blown away by the huge effect our thoughts and attention have: on our health, well-being, body chemistry, cellular action, healing…. And how Gratitude is one of the best feelings going — for us, for those around us, and the whole world… (universe?)

There are so many cool treatments of this material: fascinating science, heart-warming stories, videos that bring tears. I’ll offer a few, then wrap up with the video that inspired the title — a new twist on gratitude.

Bruce Lipton’s Biology of Belief looks at the difference between our conscious and unconscious programs we run — pointing out that it’s the unconscious mind that’s really running the show. Our deep seated beliefs affect us day to day, at a cellular level, and cultivating gratitude is one of the most health-enchancing things we can do.

“Why do we feel the way we feel? How do our thoughts and emotions affect our health? Are our bodies and minds distinct from each other or do they function together as parts of an interconnected system?” In her treatise Molecules of Emotion, Candace Pert addresses these and other topics of the mind-body continuum.

When I first came in contact with these author/scientists, I was thrilled and sobered. Thrilled by the power we have to affect our own health, the world we live in. Sobered to realize that all those habits I have, judging (self and other), criticizing (self and other), black and white thinking… are not just harmless, passing moments, but are actually affecting my body and mind at a deep level. Is this negatuvity what I want to be putting in here/out there?

Which brings me to the field of Quantum Mechanics — won’t go far or deep here, I can’t. But it now seems clear, not only from a spiritual perspective, but now also a scientific one, that what we believe are our own, personal, innermost thoughts, actually and actively affect the world around us as well. It’s not just for ourselves that it behooves us to “clean up our act,” so to speak. When I am having a rough day, feeling down and dreary, it helps me to remember this!

Taking in the Good. Savoring it. Feeling it. Letting it sink in. Rick Hanson, author of Hardwiring Happiness, neuroscientist and Buddhist practitioner, suggests this tool for using our mind to change our brain, and thus our experience. Gratitude features large in his work. I love his approach — find it inspiring and compelling!